Robin

Thanks so much Cherry. It’s wonderful to know that you are thinking of Olivia. She is the reason this blog was started, and she has had an enormous impact on my own life. Olivia’s kind maternal grandmother generously shared this platform with me which enabled me to find my own voice regarding adoption and express it to a wider audience.

It’s always nice to hear from you.

That’s so nice to hear, Debby. I hope that many people are still thinking of Veronica and the Brown family. I’m also glad to see this post is getting some shares on Facebook.

Thanks for commenting.

Nancy,
My post is very clear that we will wait to learn what Veronica wants and will honor her wishes. It does not ‘assume’ that she will walk.

Furthermore, I believe you are misinformed on this entire story. Dusten Brown never at any time knowingly signed papers giving Veronica up for adoption. He was unfamiliar with legalese, as so many of us laypersons are, and signed a document which he understood was to allow Veronica’s natural mother to make medical and other decisions for her without his input while he was deployed overseas. This is something that has been routinely done by other servicemen and women. As soon as he became aware of the exact implications of what he signed, which were not clearly explained to him, he immediately set in motion legal action to reclaim his child. The adoptive parents and the natural mother provided incorrect information (i.e. misspelling Mr. Brown’s first name and giving an incorrect birthday–whether intentional or not) so Veronica was not identified as a child protected by the Indian Child Welfare Act, which was in effect at that time. The Supreme Court of South Carolina did affirm that Dusten Brown at no time intended to give his beloved daughter up for adoption, and returned her to his custody.

I would also like to add that not only were Veronica’s circumstances NOT dire, because she is in fact the daughter of a perfectly FIT biological father who desperately wanted to raise her, but there is no reason she should have to deal with the painful and often confusing complications of being adopted, which can be lifelong, when her adoption was totally unnecessary. And these difficulties can often not be mitigated by even the most loving adoptive parents.

Heather,
Yours is the type of comment that I always find very hard to read and difficult to reply to. It is disheartening, to say the least, to read that you do not consider your relinquished daughter a member of your family any longer and to learn that she deals with so much anger. It has crossed my mind on more than one occasion that I was able to understand my mother’s so-called ‘choice’ to give me up because of the mindset of the time period in which I was born. As a white, middle-class unwed mother she really had no choice. Society wasn’t ready to accept my existence unconditionally. But when you say that your daughter is a 20-year-old, I realize that she was born during a very different time. A time when the stigma against having a child out of wedlock was largely, if not completely, gone. I know I would have had a harder time understanding the reason for my relinquishment had I been born a generation later. With that said, I can only hope that you both find that over time your hearts soften and that there will be a possibility of reunion and reconciliation.

I thank you for sharing your story here. A new year represents a new beginning. Maybe 2019 can be the catalyst for some type of a breakthrough. One can always hope.

Thank you so much for your warm wishes, Cherry. I haven’t been keeping up with the blog as much as I might wish due to my ongoing rehabilitation. and only just saw your comment. But I do very much appreciate it.

Jay, I would love to see such an outcome as you suggest, but I fear we still have a long way to go.. As my story illustrates, we need to shift the paradigm that adoption always gives the child a wonderful family and leads to a better life. Adoptive parents may love the child as much as they would a bio-child, and I believe most do, but that doesn’t mean the experience is the same for the child. When it comes to adoption, love does not conquer all!

What I always appreciate about you, Jay, is that you are so willing to overlook your own wants and perspective and give Lenny room to express his pain, and give him support for that pain.

Thanks for sharing your story Marylee. Yes, one of my main goals with this blog is to encourage adoptees and first parents to find and express their own feelings and beliefs about adoption based on their experiences rather than on the so-called prevailing wisdom..

I actually feel some release after writing this post. I was able to get out a lot of my strong and obviously negative feelings about my natural father.

I poached this comment from one of my favorite blogs, FirstMotherForum, with Lorraine’s permission. Cherry always has an astute and compelling perspective and this comment of hers fits perfectly with this post:

My son says that finding me, his mother, has completely changed his life for the better. He says that when he is among us, his family, the family he was born into, he feels like he belongs for the first time in his life.

For our part, as his family of origin, we have always emotionally and profoundly felt his absence. There has been a tangible and unique space where he should’ve been and we never got used to him not being there.

Reunion saved him and us. Adoption nearly destroyed so many of us, but reunion restored our inner strength, as individuals and as a family.

Thanks Lo. I must admit I do feel somewhat better getting this all out.

Marilynn,
Thank you for your well reasoned and thoughtful reply to my post. While I don’t agree with everything you say, only good can come out of sharing our different points of view in a positive and constructive manner.

I agree with you that extended family can certainly love and welcome a child conceived in rape. First mothers have even expressed enormous regret over listening to others and relinquishing a child conceived under such circumstances. But the bottom line is, it should be up to the individual adoptee, who never had any say in the matter, to decide whom he or she considers his father.

Yes, my father sounds very selfish and stubborn. He died before I turned 18 so I never had the chance to reconnect. The paternal family members I’ve located (all but one of whom have been welcoming) were surprised to learn of my existence. Since he apparently never shared this part of his life with anyone (other than my n-mother, of course), no one can enlighten me as to what possessed him to give up his (presumably) only child. But the tragedy of my story is that adoption, with all of its negative repercussions, never needed to be a part of my life story at all.

Thanks again for your valuable input.

Sorry it took me some time to respond, d.p, but the reason is explained in my Auto Accident post dated August 30, 2018.

When I found my father’s family, none of them had any idea that I even existed. With one exception, they were all kind and welcoming. On the one hand, no one spoke disparagingly of him, but on the other hand, no one had a clue, either, as to why on earth he didn’t just marry my mother and keep me.

I was born during the Baby Scoop era when it was extremely shameful for a white middle-class woman to have a child out of wedlock. Neither of my first parents ever told any family members that I was on the way, so, no, my mother certainly never tried to go after any support from my father. This was all very hush hush. My father seems to have gone to his grave without ever revealing my existence or how he felt about it over the years. Although in those days, the onus was hardly on the man!

Pauline,
I don’t blame you for feeling powerless and angry. And I so much appreciate that you wanted all the information to be on the records. I am sure you would agree with me that any relinquished child has a right to know the names of BOTH natural parents.